Past Prologue
by smaragdbird
Summary: The first time Derek Reese met John Connor he had just been shot.  Derek/John slash


Past prologue

The first time Derek Reese met John Connor he had just been shot in the leg. The machines had ambushed his team but thankfully the backup team had rescued them but the whole thing was a bit hazy for Derek. Someone had grabbed him from behind and dragged him down into the tunnels while Kyle covered for them.

"I'm John Connor, by the way." The man who held him down said, while Kyle cut off his trousers and opened a bottle of shitty rum that they used for everything since they had found a cavern full of it. Derek hissed when Kyle poured the rum over his shot wound.

"Yeah? Good for you." He snapped distractedly, as if he was interested in some guys name when Kyle passed the bottle to him with a tight smile and Derek chugged the stuff down. It was disgusting but it would take his mind off of the pain, more or less at least.

"Don't worry; Kyle's pretty good at this." John said to him just when Kyle began to cut into Derek's leg.

"How...would you...know?" Derek bit out between gritted teeth.

"We spent six years together in Century." Kyle shot John a look Derek couldn't decipher but John tightened his hold around Derek's arms and wrapped his legs around Derek's waist to keep him down when Kyle dug the bullet out. Derek screamed and yelled and trashed but for someone so gaunt John was a lot stronger than he looked.

Finally it was over. John's grip on him eased a bit and Kyle used the rest of the rum to sterilize the wound before wrapping it with gauze. They hadn't been able to spend much time together since their reunion so Derek was surprised at Kyle's efficiency. His little brother, a medic, who would have thought?

"John, this is my brother Derek." Kyle said with a grim smile after he had turned around to wrap gauze around Derek's leg: "Derek, this is the John Connor."

Derek tilted his head back until his eyes met John's and said:

"Hi." Before succumbing to unconsciousness.

The second time they met, Derek had left the infirmary to check up on the weapon chamber, which was the first thing he always did when they moved into a new base. He was sitting on the floor when John found him:

"Barnes is going to be pissed when he finds you here." But he sounded amused.

"Where's Kyle?" Derek asked as if John hadn't said anything.

"He's training but he sent me looking for you, making sure that you won't overuse your leg."

"He sent you here?"

"No, but I thought this would be the place to look for you."

"You don't know me." Derek moved. His leg hurt like hell and he knew that it probably hadn't been a good idea to put pressure on it. By the look John gave him he didn't think that Derek knew that.

"You're Kyle's brother. I know everything about you that happened before you and Kyle were separated." He gestured towards Derek's arm: "They never caught you."

Derek shrugged. What else could he say? That he had been free while his little brother had spent six years in a work camp? He put the weapon he had been holding back in its place and stood up.

"I'll get Kyle." He wasn't sure yet what to think of John Connor. Of course he had heard about the prophecy but he didn't believe in it. The man in front of him didn't seem to be a better soldier than most.

"See you around." John said.

The third time they met Derek just had fought with Kyle about taking risks. Sometimes Derek didn't recognise Kyle at all; sometimes it was as if a stranger was standing in front of him and not his little brother.

"Here." John tossed him a roll of mull: "Thought you might need this."

Derek gave him a questioning look.

"Your leg." John answered and gestured to Derek's leg where fresh blood had seeped through the bandage.

"How much did you hear?" Derek asked because he doubted that John would be here if he and Kyle had settled their argument peacefully. It was hard to accept but Kyle didn't need him anymore. He wasn't a kid but a fighter, a soldier and he had his own friends now just like Derek had his.

"Enough to know that ordering you to take a week or two off wouldn't end pleasantly for either of us."

"I'm not going to sit around here while others die." Derek's tone left no room for doubt.

"As a compromise I offer you a place in Tech-Com, my unit. It's mostly reconnaissance, intercepting signals, interpreting them, learning as much as we can about them." John ran his fingers through his hair as if it had been longer once and smiled. Smiling looked good on him, familiar in a way Derek couldn't place.

"Kyle told me you caught a hydrobot with your own hands when you were fifteen."

"He was eight, he's exaggerating." But Derek found himself smiling back. They had found an understanding: John wouldn't hold him back and Derek would follow his orders.

Until the day their unit caught a T-888 and John ordered them not to destroy it but to bring it back to the base. Derek was a soldier first so he waited until the rest of Tech-Com had left and the door was closed firmly behind them before he turned on John.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?"

"We need them to gather a better understanding." John argued back. His look clearly said you don't understand this, Derek. It was a look Derek hated.

"They're machines, John. We don't need to know what makes them tick. We know how to destroy them, that's enough."

"If we can reprogram them we could turn them against themselves."

"That's a fucking big if and you know it." Derek yelled: "The last time we trusted machines they launched nukes on us."

"I was there." John reminded him sharply. Derek scoffed and held his hands up while shaking his head: "Then I really don't know why you do this."

"I knew you wouldn't." John snapped.

"Then why the hell did you let me on your team?"

"Because Kyle asked me to."

Derek opened his mouth but no words came out. He stared at John, mouth open and not believing what he had just heard. John looked like he regretted his words because he reached out and said:

"Derek-"But Derek left without another word.

They saw each other again after one of John's little projects had actually a chance of succeeding. Derek, Wisher and Kyle had intercepted a signal that could be used to interfere with the machines' communication, at least according to Kyle, John and Wisher. Derek didn't understand half of it but Kyle and Wisher had teased him before that John had only put him on the team because he was good at lifting heavy things around, as if Kyle didn't know exactly why John kept him around, Derek had thought bitterly more than once.

John found him cleaning weapons again, Barnes be damned.

"How's it going?" John asked from the doorway. Derek hadn't spoken to John outside Tech-Com's mission since, well, since a while ago.

"You know I don't like firing a weapon I didn't set myself." Derek answered without looking up from his task.

"It's your birthday. " John said out of nowhere.

"How do you know?" Derek was honestly surprised. He wouldn't have thought that John would make the effort to find out his birthday when they hadn't talked to each other in months.

"Kyle. He's been hoarding alcohol for your party for weeks."

"Did he send you to find me, again?"

"Look, it's your birthday. When there are things to celebrate, they should be celebrated. Let's go. Plus you wouldn't want to break your little brother's heart, would you?" When John saw that his smile got him no reaction he sat down on the floor next to Derek.

"Derek, what I said-"But Derek interrupted him:

"Don't say it isn't true."

"It is true." John confirmed: "But that doesn't make you a less valuable member of my team."

"You don't need to mollify me." Derek still hadn't looked at John once but now John put his hand on Derek's arm to stop him and Derek finally looked up.

"I'm not." John ran his fingers through his short hair and laughed tonelessly: "I feel around you. I trust you to come back, only you. Maybe because-"He trailed off and his hand slipped from Derek's upper arm to his unmarked lower arm. Derek moved slightly to curl his fingers into John's barcode to gain some leverage before he pulled him close and kissed him. He had never thought about kissing John before but it made sense to him in this moment.

"This is a really bad idea." John whispered after he had broken the kiss.

"Is it?"

"Yes, but I really hope I'll never have to explain to you why." John answered and kissed him again.


End file.
